Nothing in nature is isolated. Everything is somehow connected with everything else. There is interaction everywhere between climate and plant life, between plants and insects, between insects and higher animals, and in that way the chain of life runs on and on. The organic is linked to the inorganic; the whole universe is one.
This passage opens a brief essay on the distribution of trees in North America in Lange’s work. It captures that nascent ecological vision that quite a few early 20th-century naturalists observed and pondered. It also stands out in a work that, while well-crafted, is directed toward an audience of older children, to encourage them to get outdoors and appreciate its wonders. Indeed, Lange served at various times in his life as a supervisor and a director of nature study programming in Minnesota. At the time his book was published, he was serving as principal of the Mechanic Arts High School in St. Paul.
I was excited to discover this title a few months ago, because for the considerable sweep of time this blog covers (almost 100 years, from 1850 to WW2), so many parts of the country remain unrepresented by nature writers. I have found dozens in Massachusetts, for example, but very few in Connecticut. Up until this book, I had not found any from the Upper Midwest. Lange, himself, was not a native. He was born in Bonstorf, Germany on June 2nd, 1863, traveling with his family to Minnesota at age 18. He held various teaching and principal positions in and around St. Paul throughout his adult years. He wrote at least fifteen works of both fiction (often featuring boy scouts) and non-fiction (nature-themed, particularly birds). He also published a handbook of nature study for teachers and pupils in the elementary grades. He died in St. Paul in 1940 of unknown causes.
As a nature writer, Longe was eager to encourage young people to “observe, investigate, and enjoy” nature. He listed among his own inspirations the works of Thoreau, Burroughs, Muir, Dallas Lore Sharp, and Gilbert White. Elsewhere, he quoted Bradford Torrey, mentioned C.C. Abbott, and recommended Ernest Ingersoll’s book, “Nature’s Calendar” (blog review coming soon). On the whole, he spoke up for environmental conservation at a time when relatively few animals (apart from birds) were given any protection. He called for game laws to protect bears, for instance, and also protections for orchids (which were being driven extinct by enthusiastic collectors and bouquet gatherers). “It was, perhaps, natural that in the pioneer stage of our country everybody should have been allowed to cut, pick, and burn; to kill, trap, and catch as he pleased,” Lange wrote. “We have now conquered the continent, and the days of the pioneer are gone, but we are still altogether too much a nation of destroyers and exploiters of all that is useful and beautiful in our land.” But lest we exalt Lange too highly, this nature writer who found a place in his heart (and in natural ecosystems) for giant ragweed also argued that the extinction of venomous snakes was “desirable”.
In keeping with Lange’s calling as a nature study teacher, the book includes an appendix on outdoor nature study, with questions to encourage students to engage with the natural world around them.
My copy of this book has considerable text on the flyleaf. As well as I can discern the writing, it reads “Merry Christmas to my friend Henry Horowitz. D. Lange. 1936. Ryan Hotel, December 23, 1936.” I pursued this puzzle a bit further, locating a circa 1900 postcard of the opulent Ryan Hotel in St. Paul, which stood downtown from 1885 until it was demolished in 1962 (see below). I even found a potential recipient of the dedication. Henry Alchanon Horowitz (1906-1990) was living at the time in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. It could be him, though I would have felt more confident to have located someone living in Minnesota at the time.
In 1891, Horace Lunt published what would be the last in a trio of nature books. The first, Across Lots (1888), was previously reviewed in this blog. The middle volume, As the Wild Bee Hums, appears to be available only through online archives. I return to an original volume of his work. In addition to obtaining a glimpse of his nature studies three years later, this process also resulted in online research that turned up a few more fragments of information about his life. More about that anon.
The publisher used the same decorative cover for this volume as is found on Across Lots. One suggestion that Lunt has “come up in the world” a bit as a writer since 1888 is that this volume has several black and white illustrations, most notably the pair of chickadees above. Another difference is that, while much of the book is filled with Lunt’s trademark nature rambles in New England over different seasons of the year, there are also several essays suggesting that Lunt has broadened his connections to other scientists, while also gaining scientific knowledge himself. In various parts of the book, Lunt writes about invertebrate life in ocean tidepools, diverse species of flies, lichens (considered plants at the time), and mosses. In each case, he makes certain to use the appropriate scientific terms; for lichens, those include apothecia, gonidia, thallus, and podetia. Unfortunately, the book’s illustrations are strictly decorative, and for the lichen novice, trying to grasp the nature of lichens without visuals strikes me as well nigh impossible. The same problem, unfortunately, is true of Lunt’s flies, tidepool life, and mosses. Lunt’s self-professed enthusiasm for nature is evident throughout; however, even robust (at times, bordering on eloquent) descriptive text is insufficient to convey many of those natural wonders to his readers.
Lunt’s circle of correspondents and/or writers he has read appears to have expanded considerably over three years. Not surprisingly, he mentions Torrey, Burroughs, Darwin, and Thoreau. But he also mentions a “Mr. Minot” — Henry Davis Minot (1859-1890), a railway magnate and ornithologist with whom we will become better acquainted in a future post. He also mentions George B. Emerson (1797-1881), educator and President of the Boston Society of Natural History as well as the cousin of Ralph Waldo Emerson. His work, A Report on the Trees and Shrubs Growing Naturally in the Forests of Massachusetts (1846), has been identified by some scholars as marking the beginning of the American Conservation Movement due to its advocacy of wiser forest management practices. Lunt names a female correspondent, Corinne Hoyt Coleman, living in New Hampshire. Finally, Lunt also refers to a “Robinson”, but his steadfast refusal to offer a first name or other details ensures that person’s enduring anonymity.
Before I close my review of this book, I will share a couple of Lunt’s most noteworthy descriptive passages. This first is from a visit to the seaside in his essay, “By the Sea” (complete with an obligatory military simile):
To Norwood’s bluffs, or the long stretch of sandy beach, I go to study the wonders of the shore in detail, and to obtain a nearer view of the ocean’s wrinkled face. It has character — its face is sterner and more imposing and expressive than the face of an inland sea. It’s voice is “The eternal bass in nature’s anthem,” and its breath has a healthful savoriness, a briny flavor, as refreshing to the scent as the perfume of flowers is to the homeward-bound sea voyager.
The winds play with it till it becomes impatient and beats itself against the rocks. Its plastic lips are wrought into a thousand gnarls and convolutions, as they curl through the fissures and caverns, while its foamy tongues, licking the stony bluffs as they recede, leave behind them many pretty cascades that flow gently down the slopes, till the waters mingle again with the incoming waves.
As there are lulls in the wind on a breezy day, so at intervals, as if exhausted with its fury, the sea by the shore becomes suddenly almost calm. Only gurgling, purling sounds are heard for a minute or two, as the wavelets lap the edges of the rocks. But it is gathering strength for another onslaught. Far out, the seas are running high again. A long procession of them swell up from the waters and roll toward the shore at the rate of four hundred feet in thirty seconds. I watch the leader rising higher and concaving as it comes rapidly on. Its crest undulates and throws up streamers of spray, like the flying hairs on the mane of a galloping horse. Now the climax is reached. The sharp edge bends in graceful curves, tumbles over and breaks with dull, heavy roar, into a long line of foam, that shoots swiftly up the steep, shingly beach; then, as it retreats, rolls back a thousand stones, which, as they strike against each other, make a crackling, rattling sound, like the snapping of musket caps by a regiment of soldiers.
Finally, here are a couple of excerpts from Lunt’s encounter with the moss world in his “Winter Sketches”:
So these modest, unpretentious mosses are humbling fulfilling their mission on the earth. They are continually making new leaves, while the old leaves are converted into rich mld, from which in time will spring up an army of higher plants, with their flourish of trumpets and their flying colors. Here at the foot of a tree is a large clump of moss with finer leaves and the thickly matted stems more delicately spun. If a yard or two of yellowish green plush with long hirsute pile had been carelessly spread out and conformed to the general unevenness of the ground, it could hardly have been distinguished, at a distance, from this beautiful piece of Nature’s weaving. The numerous awl-shaped, strongly curved leaves are arranged only on one side of the stem, as if the heavy winds blowing constantly on them from one direction had bent them, like grass-blades in the meadows. From out this soft, mossy bed has grown a mimic forest of brownish-yellow stems or pedicels on which are attached tiny fruit-cups — cornucopiae, arched or bent over like bows. A month or two ago each one of these fruit-cases was completely sealed by a ring of cells growing between the rim of the orofice and cover, that the vessels might be impervious to the weather during the growth of the spores. As the cases ripened, the cells were ruptured and the covers thus dropped off, and the spores or moss seeds were poured out and sown by the Winter’s wind…
If the attentive, descriminating rambler accepts the invitation which these humble but cheerful plants offer, he will be surprised to know how many species will salute him, and impart to him the various entertaining lessons in moss lore during an ordinary woodland walk. Each kind takes him by the button, as it were, and talks to him privately of its special characters and peculiarities.
I am struggling here with the image of a carefree talking moss plant. I think I may prefer Lunt in his more martial moments.
Since my last blog on Horace Lunt, I learned a bit more about him. He was born in York, Maine, and became an orphan at age five. He and his brother Samuel were raised by their aunt and uncle in Kittery, Maine. Another new tidbit about his life was that he may have had a leg amputated following the Civil War. His interest in nature evidently predated the war. In addition to writing, Lunt also gave public speeches. He was found dead in Essex County, Massachusetts, in May 1911 at the age of 74.
My volume of Short Cuts and By-Paths is neither signed nor stamped.
There is virtually no structure to this volume by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, unless you consider the frontispiece. That image depicts a moonglade, the path made by moonlight on the water. The term was first used by James Russell Lowell in the mid-1800s and commandeered by Higginson for an essay of the same name some years later. The Prefatory Note to this work teasingly remarks, “It may interest some readers to know that the designer of the frontispiece to this volume is identical with the child described in its closing pages.” (It also notes that the view in the frontispiece is in Newport, Rhode Island.) And thus, this image and its accompanying essay bookend the text. But who is the mysterious artist? Higginson only identifies her as “this little maiden who sits beside me in the shadow.” Fortunately, she placed her initials on the work; unfortunately, “MBM” has proven elusive. There was a writer of children’s fiction, Mary Bertha Toland, née MacKenzie (1825?-1875), but she would have been too close in age to Higginson to have been a child at the time he originally wrote the essay.
“Moonglade” is evocative of the esthetics of Ruskin mingled with a touch of Transcendentalism; as such, it makes as good a place as any for approaching this slender volume. Higginson opens the essay by remarking that “There is no Americanism more graceful than the word ‘moonglade.’ Later, he observes,
So calm are sometimes the summer evenings by this bay that all motion sees at an end, and the weary play of events to have stopped forever. But Nature never really rests, and the moon, which seems only an ornament for this quiet water, is in reality leading it along with restless progress, bidding it roll lazily over reefs, surge into sea caves, and sweep away with it any boat that is not moored.
This notion of nature as constant flux is a fine candidate for a theme of many of these essays, beginning with “The Procession of the Flowers.” As advertised, that essay considers the progression of blooms from spring until autumn in New England (more precisely, Worcester, Massachusetts, where Higginson served as minister of the Worcester Free Church). In a later essay on“April Days“, Higginson writes about how many flowering plants native to the Boston region have been displaced by human development. The result is an abundance of naturalized plants, including dandelion, buttercup, chickweed, celandine, mullein, burdock, and yarrow, among others. “Bigelow’s delightful book Florula Bostoniensis,” he keenly observes, “is becoming a series of epitaphs.” The result is two contrasting forms of change: Nature’s change across the seasons (always happening, but consistent year to year), and the landscape changes of Massachusetts (urbanization and suburbanization) with their radical impact on the local flora — and “the special insects who haunt them.” Do I detect a hint of woe in Higginson’s observation (quoting a letter from Dr. Thaddeus William Harris) that so many native plants have “disappeared from their former haunts, driven away, or exterminated perhaps, by the changes effected therein”? I cannot help but read Higginson in the light of the ongoing modern-day global climate disruption, where even the reliable progression of the flowers is being considerably impacted. “Fair is foul, foul is fair,” three witches once remarked.
Another theme in several pieces in this volume is the human need for Nature. Here, Higginson seems to presage recent research into the role of nature experiences in child development (including the intellect):
No man can measure what a single hour with Nature may have contributed to the moulding of his mind. The influence is self-renewing, and if for a long time it baffles expression by reason of its fineness, so much the better in the end.
The soul is like a musical instrument; it is not enough that it be framed for the most delicate vibration, but it must vibrate long and often before the fibres grow mellow to the finest waves of sympathy. I perceive that in the veery’s carolling, the clover’s scent, the glistening of the water, the waving wings of butterflies, the sunset tints, the floating clouds, there are attainable infinitely more subtile modulations of thought than I can yet reach the sensibility to discriminate, much less describe.
Cue applause from Ralph Waldo Emerson in the shadows.
Spending time in nature, Higginson argues, ought to be a vital part of healthy education for children. “The little I have gained from colleges and libraries,” he declares, “has certainly not worn as well as the little I learned in childhood of the habits of plant, bird, and insect.” Alas, schools at the time (and now) generally did not (do not) offer those opportunities to young people. “Under the present educational system we need grammars and languages far less than a more thorough out-door experience.”
By way of a miscellany (which reflects this book well), another thing I particularly noticed while reading it was the natural philosophy and science community in which HIgginson lived and wrote. At various points in the book, he quotes Humboldt; he refers to “so good an observer as Wilson Flagg”; he quotes Dr. Thaddeus William Harris, American entymologist; and he mentions Ralph Waldo Emerson. His greatest praise is reserved for Thoreau: “Thoreau camps down by Walden Pond, and show us that absolutely nothing in nature has every yet been described, — not a bird nor a berry of the woods, not a drop of water, nor a spicula of ice, nor summer, nor winter, nor sun, nor star.” Later, he refers to a conversation with Thoreau about local bird distributions in December, 1861, just five months before he died: “…he mentioned most remarkable facts in that department, which had fallen under his unerring eyes.”
Following my encounters with the Collector in Wild Honey by Samuel Scoville, Jr., I was refreshed to discover in Higginson a strong resistance to violence against birds. I think it is in keeping with his radical abolitionist spirit (he was one of Secret Six that backed John Brown’s Raid) and strong moral principles regarding freedom and basic rights for all that he extends similar care to the birds:
The small number of birds yet present in early April gives a better opportunity for careful study, — more especially if one goes armed with the best of fowling-pieces, a small spy-glass; the best, — since how valuable for purposes of observation is the bleeding, gasping, dying body, compared with the fresh and living creature, as it tilts, trembles, and warbles on the branch before you!
Before I close my book and place it next to all the others collecting in my bookshelf of completed texts, I offer up this lovely descriptive passage as evidence of the soaring, elegant prose Higginson sometimes achieved:
As I sat in my boat, one sunny afternoon of last September, beneath the shady western shore of our quiet lake, with the low sunset striking almost level across the wooded banks, it seemed as if the last hoarded drops of summer’s sweetness were being poured over all the world. The air was full of quiet sounds. Turtles rustled beside the brink and slithered into the water, — cows plashed in the shallows, — fishes leaped from the placid depths, — a squirrel sobbed and fretted on a neighboring stump, — a katydid across the lake maintained its hard, dry croak, — the crickets chirped pertinaciously, but with little, fatigued pauses, as if glad that their work was almost done, — the grasshoppers kept up their continual chant, which seemed thoroughly melted and amalgamated into the summer, as if it would go on indefinitely, though the body of the little creature were dried into dust. All this time the birds were silent and invisible, as if they would take no more part in the symphony of the year. Then, seemingly by preconcerted signal, they joined in: Crows cawed anxiously afar; Jays screamed in the woods; a Partridge clucked to its brood, like the gurgle of water from a bottle; a Kingfisher wound his rattle, more briefly than in spring, as if we now knew all about it and the merest hint ought to suffice; a Fish-Hawk flapped into the water, with a great, rude splash, and then flew heavily away; a flock of Wild Ducks went southward overhead, and a smaller party returned beneath them, flying low and anxiously, as if to pick up some lost baggage; and, at last, a Loon laughted loud from behind a distant island, and it was pleasant to people these woods and waters with that wild shouting, linking them with Katahdin Lake and Amperzand.
Next, a few words about Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911) and my copy of his book. According to Wikipedia, Higginson was a Unitarian minister, author, abolitionist, and soldier. During the Civil War, he served as Colonel of the first federally recognized black regiment. He was a correspondent and mentor to Emily Dickinson (1830-1886). His own books covered a range of topics, from his Civil War experiences to the rights of women. HIs few nature essays originally appeared in Outdoor Papers, published in 1889. In 1897, he extracted most of the nature essays, combining them with “Moonglade” to produce the present volume.
According to a signature inside the book, my copy was previously owned by Isabella L. Houghton of North Adams, Massachusetts; she obtained the book on March 17, 1900. The only thing I was able to learn about her online is that she also signed her name in a copy of Women and the Alphabet: A Series of Essays, also by Higginson, published in 1900. I assume that she passed the newspaper clipping with a poem by S.R. Smith of Kingston in the front. For the curious, S.R. Smith happens to be the name of the world’s leading manufacturer of pool deck equipment. Enough said. The back page of the book contains a passage from Paolo and Francesca that appears to have been copied in Isabella’s hand. The work was a tragedy in four acts (first performed in 1902) by the English poet and dramatist Steven Phillips (1864-1915). The particular copied bit was spoken by Franc (frankly?); the copyist took a bit of liberty with the first line. Here is the original:
And yet, Nita, and yet — can any tell
How sorrow forth doth come? Is there a step,
A light step, or a dreamy drip of oars?
Is there a stirring of leaves, or ruffle of wings?
As Memorial Day approaches yet again, the naturalist’s thought turns to how we memorialize those our nation has lost in wars. We construct monuments of granite and marble, polished stone faces with lettering that has come to signify, in our culture, the tragic reality of death, of loss. Perhaps on Memorial Day we might visit a memorial, brush our fingertips against the cold stone letters, and touch, for a moment, our own inevitable mortality. Perhaps even while standing beneath an appropriately leaden sky, we weep for the enormity of our losses along the path to maintain the freedom we first fought for over two hundred years ago. And while we weep, the chainsaws growl, and another tree falls in a stand of forest that stood untouched for the past fifty years or more. Bulldozers scrape their way across the land, and the forest is forgotten.
There is another way.
There is a way to honor our fallen and also to protect and cherish the living forests all around us. It is a model whose roots go back at least to ancient Greece, and probably further. The Greeks (and many other civilizations) maintained sacred groves, patches of forest where they could approach the great Mystery through ritual. The forest was a place for spiritual connection — an awareness not lost on Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon religion, who had a vision of God and Jesus while praying in a ten-acre beech grove on his family farm in 1820. As a result of this vision, that patch of forest is now cared for and protected. As Donald Enders writes in an article at www.LDS.org, “The Sacred Grove is one of the last surviving tracts of primeval forest in western New York state….. The Church has for some years been directing a program to safeguard and extend the life of this beautiful woodland that is sacred to Latter-day Saints.” Along the streets of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, and many other towns and cities across the United States, trees have been planted to honor the deceased. Beside the trees, small stone plaques bear a name, a few words of remembrance, and birth and death dates. Within this tradition, the idea of honoring the dead through caring for the living still remains. The next step back to the grove would be to recognize healthy, mature forests as being fitting sacred sites.
Through dedication ceremonies and markers in the forest, they can become places to acknowledge our losses while celebrating life’s continuance, in leaves of an oak and flowers of a tulip poplar. It is this very idea that Joan Maloof proposes in Teaching the Trees: Lessons from the Forest.
On the Eastern Shore of Maryland where she lives, a tract of mature forest was obtained by her county for conversion into a public park. For many residents and county officials, such a park meant ball fields, parking areas, and open spaces — not necessarily a forest. And then September 11th happened. In her grief, inspired by a talk on Buddhist approaches to nature, she decided to turn the forest grove into a memorial for the victims. With red yarn, she hung name tags of the fallen on trees, creating the September 11 Memorial Forest. The act at once established a sacred space for grieving, and protected the trees from being cut. Imagine another Memorial Day in Georgia, years from now. Families gather together, fill their picnic baskets, and wander off into the forest. They come at last to a sturdy beech, or sweet gum,
or sycamore, growing along the banks of a stream. At its base, a small stone bears the name of a brother, a husband, a son. Against a backdrop of birdsong and flowing water, they share memories of the love he had given, and tears, too, for the loss they have endured without him. All
around, they are consoled by the living presence of nature, in a forest forever protected as a memorial grove.
May 27, 2010
As Memorial Day approaches yet again, the naturalist’s thought turns to how we memorialize those our nation has lost in wars. We construct monuments of granite and marble, polished stone faces with lettering that has come to signify, in our culture, the tragic reality of death, of loss. Perhaps on Memorial Day we might visit a memorial, brush our fingertips against the cold stone letters, and touch, for a moment, our own inevitable mortality. Perhaps even while standing beneath an appropriately leaden sky, we weep for the enormity of our losses along the path to maintain the freedom we first fought for over two hundred years ago.
And while we weep, the chainsaws growl, and another tree falls in a stand of forest that stood untouched for the past fifty years or more. Bulldozers scrape their way across the land, and the forest is forgotten.
There is another way.
There is a way to honor our fallen and also to protect and cherish the living forests all around us. It is a model whose roots go back at least to ancient Greece, and probably further. The Greeks (and many other civilizations) maintained sacred groves, patches of forest where they could approach the great Mystery through ritual. The forest was a place for spiritual connection — an awareness not lost on Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon religion, who had a vision of God and Jesus while praying in a ten-acre beech grove on his family farm in 1820. As a result of this vision, that patch of forest is now cared for and protected. As Donald Enders writes in an article at www.LDS.org, “The Sacred Grove is one of the last surviving tracts of primeval forest in western New York state….. The Church has for some years been directing a program to safeguard and extend the life of this beautiful woodland that is sacred to Latter-day Saints.”
Along the streets of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, and many other towns and cities across the United States, trees have been planted to honor the deceased. Beside the trees, small stone plaques bear a name, a few words of remembrance, and birth and death dates. Within this tradition, the idea of honoring the dead through caring for the living still remains. The next step back to the grove would be to recognize healthy, mature forests as being fitting sacred sites. Through dedication ceremonies and markers in the forest, they can become places to acknowledge our losses while celebrating life’s continuance, in leaves of an oak and flowers of a tulip poplar.
It is this very idea that Joan Maloof proposes in Teaching the Trees: Lessons from the Forest. On the Eastern Shore of Maryland where she lives, a tract of mature forest was obtained by her county for conversion into a public park. For many residents and county officials, such a park meant ball fields, parking areas, and open spaces — not necessarily a forest. And then September 11th happened. In her grief, inspired by a talk on Buddhist approaches to nature, she decided to turn the forest grove into a memorial for the victims. With red yarn, she hung name tags of the fallen on trees, creating the September 11 Memorial Forest. The act at once established a sacred space for grieving, and protected the trees from being cut.
Imagine another Memorial Day in Georgia, years from now. Families gather together, fill their picnic baskets, and wander off into the forest. They come at last to a sturdy beech, or sweet gum, or sycamore, growing along the banks of a stream. At its base, a small stone bears the name of a brother, a husband, a son. Against a backdrop of birdsong and flowing water, they share memories of the love he had given, and tears, too, for the loss they have endured without him. All around, they are consoled by the living presence of nature, in a forest forever protected as a memorial grove.
Last weekend, this author took a visit to Newman Wetlands Center, following a familiar half-mile trail of gravel and boardwalk along and through areas of ponds and woods. Fences or railings along most of its length keep visitors to the straight and narrow, preventing them from stepping off trail — and potentially, into the muck. Gravel and boardwalk surfaces are level, and capable of sustaining heavy foot traffic. The wetlands themselves are not. A single deep boot-print in the mud could remain for months.
It was quite a surprise to discover, along the trail, that a section of wooden fence had been removed. According to a laminated paper sign attached to one of the remaining fence posts in that section, the purpose of this break in the fence was to enable visitors to use “new trail areas”. Perhaps the plan is to add gravel and perhaps a wetland overlook, with more fence and railings. Or maybe the gap is there to enable visitors to feel mud underfoot and thorny briars rubbing against their bare legs.
Beyond the gap in the fence, a zone of flattened leaves marked an impromptu path a few dozen feet to the edge of a stream within the wetland. A bit of bushwacking led to a great spot for photographing some aquatic turtles (painteds and sliders) sunning themselves on a log. In his enthusiasm, the writer startled many of them while trying to approach, and they plopped into the water and swam away.
The “adventure” was one of the high points of the author’s trip, and marked the only point on the trail where there were “hazards” such as thorny underbrush and patches of deep mud. There is something unsettling, though, about that gap in the fence. It is not the gap itself that is troubling, but the fear of what its impact might be. The same space that provides children (accompanied by adults) and adults alike with a way to get closer to nature can also become heavily compacted and eroded with so many passing feet. And what of the turtles on the nearby log? Will they eventually move on, after too many times of being scared off their chosen logs? No doubt the wetlands would be much better protected if we all kept to clearly marked paths of gravel and wood.
And yet, this line of thought is even more troubling to the author, as an environmental educator. As Richard Louv has documented so powerfully in his Last Child in the Woods, children today have fewer opportunities to get out into nature than their parents did. They spend much less time splashing in the water, jumping in the mud, catching frogs and salamanders, and using leaves and branches to construct imaginary realms. Increasingly, children are growing up in suburban developments whose doctrines and convenants expressly forbid tree forts and wild spaces in residents’ yards. Where can children go to bond with nature? “Where do the children play?” as a famous songwriter once asked.
There are so few places left in Georgia, and throughout much of the eastern U.S., for children to connect with the natural world. So naturally, those few places open to them are in danger of abuse from overuse, because they are all there is. We need more gaps in the fence, not fewer. We need a lot more places without fences, or “keep out” signs, or wood-chip paths where nature is to be observed at a respectful distance, like paintings behind ropes in a museum.
This article was originally published on March 31, 2010.
Tiger swallowtail butterfly. Photographed June 2011 at Newman Wetlands Center, Hampton, GA.
According to the book of Genesis in the Holy Bible, one of Adam’s first actions after being created was to gather together all living things and give them names. Clearly, the human predilection for classifying and naming plants and animals goes back thousands of years. It is most evident today in birders’ life lists: collections of scientific names of all the different birds one has seen over a lifetime. My own bookshelves overflow with field guides, nearly a hundred in all, covering birds, trees, salamanders, moths, mushrooms, and many other kinds of living things. In medieval alchemy, names had power to them, as shown by the fact that to spell refers both to stating the letters in a word and exerting magical influence in the world. Nowadays, to know the name (common or scientific) of a plant or animal is enough for a naturalist to find dozens of images and species accounts scattered across the Web. It is possible to take a digital photograph of a butterfly in the morning and spend the rest of the day indoors and online, reading about the butterfly, its life cycle, host plants, behaviors, etc.
But naming is only one access point into learning about the natural world. And particularly for children, perhaps names are not the best place to start after all. The naturalist Barry Lopez warns, in his book of essays, Crossing Open Ground (pp. 150-151), “The quickest door to open in the woods for a child is the one that leads to the smallest room, by knowing the name each thing is called. The door that leads to a cathedral is marked by a hesitancy to speak at all, rather to encourage by example a sharpness of the senses.” Once we learn a name for something, there is a sense of completion, a suggestion that it is all that is necessary. Yet there is so much more out there to discover. When we take the time to study the more-than-human world closely, we begin to notice how trees and insects have individuality and personality of their own. A label just captures a static form, while living things are always changing. Caterpillars become butterflies, and a holly bush outside my window comes into bloom and suddenly swarms with bees and other flying insects craving nectar.
Thinking back to my own childhood (with many hours spent running barefoot across neighbors fields or tromping through a woodlot behind my house), I recall how few plants and animals I could identify. I knew what poison ivy looked like, and my brother taught me about jewelweed because it could be used to treat poison ivy. There was a shrub that grew in several places in the yard that I was confident was witch hazel; a few years ago, I learned that it was actually spicebush. There were dandelions, bane of my father, resident Lawnkeeper. And then there was Queen Anne’s lace, or wild carrot. My brother taught me that one, too. It’s roots tasted quite similar to carrot, but their texture was much closer to that of many strands of dental floss twisted together. In the front yard, there were black walnut trees that periodically covered the lawn with large green nuts, and in the far front, by the road, a stately sycamore that I learned in school was one of the oldest deciduous trees in the evolution of life on Earth. Animals I knew only by categories: ants, spiders, squirrels. My knowledge of classification was ad hoc and full of holes, having as much to do with uses plants could be put to as anything else.
I am in good company. Even the famous biologist E.O. Wilson recognized that this kind of nature experience may be more important in fostering a love of nature and sense of wonder about the environment around us. In his autobiography, Naturalist, he wrote (pp. 12-13) that “Hands-on experience at the critical time, not systematic knowledge, is what counts in the making of a naturalist. Better to be an untutored savage for a while, not to know the names or anatomical detail. Better to spend long stretches of time just searching and dreaming.” Wilson went on to quote Rachel Carson’s essay, The Sense of Wonder, in which she commented that “If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow. The years of childhood are the time to prepare the soil.”
How, then, to encourage children to connect with nature, if not by way of field guides? One approach would be simply to encourage children to go on backyard safaris, to see what they can discover and study it closely. All that is needed are long pants and repellant against ticks and chiggers, knowledge of how to avoid fire ants, poison ivy, and other hazards of going adventuring, a magnifying lens, perhaps a jar with holes in the lid, maybe even a digital camera, and plenty of time. I suspect the child will return with tales of sights and wonders you had not imagined before.
Another activity is to choose a few trees and shrubs, observe them closely with a child, and encourage him or her to give them names. Periodically over the seasons, the child can be encouraged to revisit Bendy Tree and Prickly Shrub. How are they changing day to day, and season to season? Are there new visitors to the tree that weren’t there before? Are the leaves just unfurling, or are they perhaps riddled with holes from someone’s latest meal? Eventually, as the child gets to know the plants better, and is on familiar terms with them, he or she may inquire after their scientific names (or at least their common ones). Then it will be time to break out a field guide. The name will add one more layer of knowledge to what is already there, rather than being sufficient by itself. There is so much about nature hidden beneath the names, like salamanders beneath cobbles in a stream, just waiting to be explored.
This article was originally published on April 30, 2012.
